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Doha climate talks: Bolivia declares, 'The climate is not for sale!'

The following address was presented on December 5 by Jose Antonio Zamora
Guitierrez (pictured), minister of environment and water for the Plurinational
State of Bolivia, to the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP18) in Doha, Qatar.

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December 5, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Mr. President of the COP, distinguished heads of state of countries of the world, ministers, officials,
delegates and representatives of social organisations, Indigenous
peoples and communities and farmers of the world, receive a greeting
from the Plurinational State of Bolivia and our president, Evo Morales
Ayma.

The planet and humanity are in serious danger of extinction. The
forests are in danger, biodiversity is in danger, the rivers and the
oceans are in danger, the Earth is in danger. This beautiful human
community inhabiting our Mother Earth is in danger due to the climate
crisis.

The causes of the climate crisis are directly related to the
accumulation and concentration of wealth in few countries and in small
social groups, excessive and wasteful mass consumption, under the belief
that having more is living better, polluting production and disposable
goods to enrich wealth increasing the ecological footprint, as well as
the excessive and unsustainable use of renewable and non-renewable
natural resources at a high environmental cost for extractive activities
for production.

A wasteful, consumerist, exclusionary, greedy civilisation generating
wealth in some hands and poverty everywhere, has produced pollution and
climate crisis. We did not come here to negotiate climate. We did not
come here to turn the climate into a business, or to protect businesses
of them who want to continue aggravating the climate crisis, destroying
Mother Earth. We have come with concrete solutions.

The climate is not for sale, ladies and gentlemen.

The withdrawal of some developed
countries of the Kyoto protocol and avoiding of their commitments is an
attack on the Mother Earth and to life. The problem of climate crisis
will not be solved with political declarations, but with specific
commitments.

We will not pay the climate debt of developed countries to developing
countries. They, developed countries, must fulfill their
responsibility. While some developed countries do their best to avoid
their commitments to solve the climate crisis, developing countries are
making greater efforts to reduce emissions, and paying the price of a
climate crisis and that everyday leaves droughts, floods, hurricanes,
typhoons, etc.

The climate crisis leaves us poorer, deprives us of food, destroys
our economy, creates insecurity, and createsmigration. Climate change
will make the poor poorer. Poor and developing countries have a great
challenge: the eradication of poverty. And we’ll have to face a climate
crisis for which we are not guilty.

In addition to adapting to climate change we must ensure security,
education, health, energy for the population, provision of water and
sanitation services, delivery communication and infrastructure services,
job creation, provision of housing, reconstruction due to loss and
damage caused by extreme weather events, adaptation actions, among
others.

We denounce to the whole world the pressure from some
countries for the approval of new carbon market mechanisms, although
these have shown to be ineffective in the fight against climate change,
and that only represent business opportunities. This is a climate change
conference, not a conference for carbon business. We did not come here
to do business with the death of Mother Earth, betting on the power of
markets as a solution. We are here to protect our Mother Earth, we came
here to protect the future of humanity.

Yesterday forests were turned into carbon markets businesses, and the
same was done with the land, they tried to oceans and, worse, to
agriculture. Agriculture is food security, employment, life and
culture. Agriculture is along with the land, mountains and forests, the
house and the food of our Indigenous and peasant communities.

We will not allow the replacement of the obligations of developed
countries with carbon markets. The planet is not for sale, nor our
life.

It is essential that developed countries take the lead with
mitigation actions with concrete results and high ambitions and that
developing countries do their part within their respective capabilities,
and according to financial and technological transfers, solving
problems of poverty.

In Bolivia we have the vision of Living Well as a new
approach for civilisation and cultural alternative to capitalism, and in
this context we focus our efforts to create a balance and harmony
between society and nature.

Bolivia presented here concrete proposals to strengthen the global
climate system. We have proposed the creation of the Joint Mechanism for
Mitigation and Adaptation for integrated and sustainable management of
forests, not based on markets, to strengthen community, indigenous and
peasant management of our forests, which can promote climate mitigation
actions without transferring the responsibilities of developed countries
to developing countries.

Also, we promote consistently the creation of an international
mechanism to address loss and damage resulting from natural causes and
impacts of climate change in developing countries. Our country will not
promote carbon market mechanisms such as REDD, and will respect and
strengthen community management of forests.

We will not allow the people of the world to pay the
bill for the irresponsibility and greed. It's time to give concrete
answers to humanity and Mother Earth. Let's be careful of the intentions
of some developed parties to make us feel resigned in front of this
terrible reality, and admit the inertia and inaction of those countries
that are historically responsible of global warming, sending us a
message that is better to have a "pragmatic" attitude, which of course
will condemn to cook planet and the extinction of the humanity.

Mr. President, brothers and sisters of the world, take these words as
a commitment to life and Mother Earth. With this conviction we will be
guided to meet the challenge we have in this conference, the challenge
of saving the planet, and not to negotiate our climate. Thank you Mr.
President.

Mr. President, brothers and sisters of the world, take these words as
a commitment to life and Mother Earth. With this conviction we will be
guided to meet the challenge we have in this conference, the challenge
of saving the planet, and not to negotiate our climate. Thank you Mr.
President.

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Statement
by the Plurinational State of Bolivia, translated by Richard Fidler

December 5, 2012 -- Bolivia Rising -- At the 18th session of the Conference of
the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which
is being held in Doha-Qatar November 26-December 7, the Bolivian delegation has
reaffirmed its rejection of the use and expansion of carbon markets as a tool
for reducing emissions causing climate change in the world, and presented a
proposal using alternative tools not based on carbon markets.

Why are carbon markets not a response to
the climate crisis?

In 2005, a scheme was implemented [the REDD
– Reducing Emissions from Deforestation
and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries] under which developed
countries, which are historically responsible for climate change, were allowed
to transfer their carbon reduction responsibilities to the developing countries
through the use of carbon markets, enabling the developed countries to purchase
reductions on the pretext that they were achieving greater economic efficiency
in the fight against climate change.

This mechanism allows the developed
countries to purchase emission reductions from the developing countries, at
prices of 3 to 20 dollars per ton of carbon, to help fulfil their commitments,
when it would have cost them an average of $38 to reduce the same ton. They
argued that this would help reduce the emissions of the developed countries.

To date, about twice the amount of 1990
carbon emissions by developed countries has been accounted for in carbon
markets. The carbon market is a profitable business. But it does not in fact
contribute to reducing emissions or solving the climate crisis.

This is an alarming situation, especially
when scientists are speaking out strongly about the need for genuine reductions
if we are to avoid climate catastrophe.

If we take a careful look again at the
numbers, we realise that emissions have increased and continue to increase,
notwithstanding that the carbon market data are an attempt to demonstrate the
opposite. It is critical that there be no further delay in taking immediate
action and achieving real reductions.

We simply cannot leave the solution to the
problem of climate change to carbon markets, which have demonstrated great
efficiency in generating profits for the big corporations (about $720 billion)
at the cost of speculation and postponement of real action to confront climate
change.

The Plurinational
State of Bolivia proposes implementation of
a new joint mechanism for adaptation and mitigation through integrated
management of forests that prevents deforestation and avoids the emission of
millions of tons of greenhouse gases. It will be funded through the
Convention’s Green Fund, using public funds from the developed countries, in line
with the commitments made by these countries for a decade with no results to
date.

The mechanism proposed by Bolivia, which
critically differs from REDD, represents a genuine alternative that is
consistent with the principles of the Convention, and especially with the
principles of equity, historical responsibility, and climate debt. It is a
proposal that seeks to achieve real reductions and not speculation about
trends, supplemented by actions for real reductions in emissions within the
industrialised countries — thereby avoiding the transfer of their
responsibilities to the developing countries.